Media Research Exec Says Music Industry Is On Its Last Legs

Ponca City, We Love You writes "For years, the major record labels have fought a pitched battle against the MP3 format. Although major labels like EMI and the Universal Music Group have embraced MP3s in recent months, a story from the Mercury News says early returns from those moves indicate they've had little impact on the industry's fortunes — for better or for worse. 'These are ailing businesses on their last legs,' said Eric Garland, chief executive of BigChampagne, a market research company focused on digital media. The question of copy protection on song downloads 'matters a whole lot less to them than it once did.' The industry has a bigger problem. Consumers used to buy CDs for $10 or $15 a pop. Increasingly, they're buying songs at about $1 apiece instead. So, even if transactions continue to increase, the industry is seeing far less money each time consumers buy and it's having a difficult time making up the difference."

Comments

Re:Bah

[theMerovingian]

Those ratios also probably reflect the amount of investment and work that the parties put in. The label has to produce, market, distribute the music, and handle all the business stuff. Apple has to make enough to offset the cost of their fancy itunes infrastructure. The artists just smoke some pot, sleep with some women, and take all the credit for their commercial success.

Just think - if an artist could be a commercial success simply by being good, they would do it. The skillsets for operating a successful music business are largely at variance with what it takes to be an entertainer. Off the top of my head, the only two artists I can think of who truly understand the music business are Jay-Z and MC Hammer. There have been other artists more successful than them in real terms (Beatles, Elvis, Madonna, etc), but I bet Jay-Z and Hammer took home a substantially larger percentage of the revenue they earned than most of their colleagues.